I’ve gone on at length about my love of Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying in previous reviews, on my YouTube channel, whilst ranting on street corners, etc.  Suffice to say, it’s an amazing system that helped get me into the hobby, and which I love to this day.  Per the introduction to this game, the original Swedish version was a direct translation of Chaosium’s Magic World, which used BRP as its core mechanic.  I believe some elements of RuneQuest got mixed in along the way, which is where the mallards come from.  Over the decades, it has had several editions under the name Dragons & Demons(but like, in Swedish), and now, it has come back to the English language as Dragonbane, a game of “mirth and mayhem.”  

In this boxed set, you’ll find the core rule book.  This contains everything you need to play, including character creation.  This isn’t just a starter box, meant to wet your whistle.  This is the game.  You’ve got what you need in this box to run as far as you want.  Combat, magic, skills, advancement, etc.  It’s all here.  Dragonbane is, like its BRP ancestor, a roll under game.  Instead of using a percentile, it simplifies things to a 20 sided die, like Pendragon.  It works much the same, but in 5% increments, instead of the 1% you’d find in most BRP games.  It’s skill-based, not class based.  This means that you can tailor a character and advance a character in whatever way you see fit.  No need to adhere to any prescriptive class structure where your advancement path is already set from the beginning.  With skill-based games, you improve by doing.  If you want to be a great fighter, fight.  If you want to be a great swimmer, swim.  If you want to be a great magician, cast spells.  You have several kin options, so if you want to play a Human, Elf, or Dwarf, you can.  There are also a few others that are slightly more unique, like the Mallards (duck people) or the Wolfkin (wolf people).  I find it funny that folks kind of obsess over the Mallards, when they wouldn’t bat an eye at cat people, bear people, or what have you.  Hell, other games even have other bird folk, like crows or ibises.  But ducks seem to be some weird bridge too far for folks.  Perhaps they equate it to Howard the Duck, or Donald Duck.  Certainly, thanks to the cover art on the rule book, folks mention Darkwing Duck a lot.  Whatever the case, it doesn’t bother me.  They’re no sillier than some other Fantasy kin that show up in games.

Also in the box is an adventure book.  Not just a sample adventure, but eleven adventures.  Most can be run as one-shots, and seem to be intended to take a single session.  If you decide to run it as a campaign, most of them don’t need to be run in a particular order.  There is one scenario in particular that is meant as a campaign ender, and probably wouldn’t make sense to run on its own, or out of order.  Funny enough, I’ve been scratching my head, trying to find or make just the right adventure for an upcoming Dungeon Crawl Classics game I’ve got on the schedule.  The scenario Oracle Cave in this book is pretty perfect, so I think I’ll be doing some conversions over the next couple weeks.  

And that’s not all.  The box comes with a brief pamphlet with solo rules and a very short solo adventure.  I thought this was a cool, if perhaps a bit sparse addition.  But I also got to thinking some of what’s in it would be very useful if you were thinking about running a one-on-one game, as well.  Both heroic abilities would be very helpful for a PC.  There’s also a really lovely, and high quality map, as well as a double sided battle mat for more tactical combats.  Finally, there’s a set of dice and a bunch of cardboard miniatures of both PCs and monsters.

There’s a lot I like about this game.  Obviously, I’m biased, as I’m already a BRP fan, and it’s cool seeing a twist on some of those venerable rules.  The rules seem robust while not being overwhelming.  I’m not sure how I feel about treating NPCs and monsters differently.  I’ll have to try that to be sure one way or another.  I do, however, really like the little attack charts on the monsters, where you roll or choose to figure out what the creature does in combat.  I gather that was also done previously in Forbidden Lands.  I’m not sure if it’s older than that.  But I really like it, and I think I’ll be working on using it in my Dungeon Crawl Classics game, as well.  It lends combat some variety beyond, “it attacks, roll if you want to dodge.”

In the last couple of years, especially after Wizards of the Coast has seemed hell bent on upsetting as many people as possible, I see a lot of people online asking what new game is going to be the “D&D Killer.”  My answer to that is always the same.  The only D&D killer will be the company that currently owns the rights to D&D.  After falling into near irrelevance in the 90s, culminating in the purchase and dismantling of TSR by upstarts Wizards of the Coast, who were themselves later bought by megacorporation Hasbro, D&D came back from obscurity with its 5th Edition, which was then boosted by the pop culture explosions of Critical Roll and Stranger Things.  They were in the right time at the right place, and they managed to ride that wave, making 5e the most popular and successful RPG of all time and ushering in a new Golden Age for the hobby.  Cap that off with the pandemic hitting and virtual tabletops advancing to the point where folks can game online.  Everything’s been coming up Millhouse for D&D, WotC, and Hasbro for several years.  So, even with all their many sins, there is still no game poised to plunge the dagger in.  WotC and Hasbro are the only potential murderers in this plot.  And they seem to be giving it the old college try.

That said, Dragonbane is a lovely alternative.  For folks who don’t want to support a corporate juggernaut that continually steamrolls people, that nickel & dimes their customer base, that generally seems dead set on draining every ounce of good will out there like some blood-drunk vampire, then Dragonbane is a good option.  It hits a lot of the same notes when it comes to genre, but does so with much more skill and panache.  It also helps that the core boxed set is such a fantastic deal.  Don’t get too comfortable with that.  Not all their product is such a good value.  For example, the hardcover of the core rules, which is from what I understand the same as the 112 rulebook in this boxed set, except that it’s hardcover and has a different, short adventure included, is the same price.  The boxed set is a MUCH better deal.  Would I like the rules in hardcover, with another adventure?  Yes.  But I don’t think I want to spend the same price again just to get it, especially as that hardcover doesn’t come with the cardboard minis, a map, dice, or eleven adventures. 

To sum up.  This boxed set is a great deal.  The Dragonbane system is a very cool evolution of BRP.  If you enjoy Fantasy tabletop RPGs, especially if you’re looking for an alternative to D&D that is still the same general genre, check this out.

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